V. To the Principal Arguments

90. To the principal arguments. - To the first [n.1] I draw a distinction about the natural object. For ‘natural object’ can be taken either for that which can naturally or by the action of causes naturally active be attained, or for that to which the power is naturally inclined, whether it can naturally attain the object or not. The major, then, might be denied by denying ‘natural’ in the first way, because the first object is something adequate to the power and is therefore abstracted from all those things that the power is able to operate on; however it is not necessary that the intellect, if it could naturally understand some such common thing, could naturally understand whatever is contained under it, because the understanding of something contained is much more excellent than a confused understanding of such a common thing; thus, although the minor is in each sense conceded, the intended conclusion is not gained, namely the conclusion about something naturally attainable, because the major in this way was false.

91. Against this response I reply that it destroys itself. For the first object is by itself something adequate to the power and is true, namely because the power has regard to nothing as object except what has in it the nature of the first object, and whatever has in it the nature of the first object the power has regard to it as to its object; therefore it is impossible for something to be naturally first without anything whatever that is contained in it being thus per se naturally the object. For grant the opposite, and then it is not naturally adequate but exceeds, and something inferior to it is adequate, and thus is first.

Now the reason that is adduced for the response [n.90] is the fallacy of figure of speech. For although being, insofar as it is something intelligible in one act (as man is intelligible in one understanding), is naturally intelligible (for the one understanding of being as of a single object is natural), yet being cannot be posited as the first object naturally attainable, because it is the first object as it is included in all per se objects, and as such only whatever among them is naturally intelligible is naturally attainable. Therefore the phrase ‘this thing’ is altered to ‘this thing as qualified’ when it is argued ‘being is naturally intelligible, therefore being as it is the first object of the intellect is the adequate object and naturally attainable,’ for the antecedent is true of being as it is one intelligible, the way white is, but the consequent draws a conclusion about being as it is included in all intelligibles, not as it is intelligible apart from them.

92. To the argument [n.1], then, there is another response, a real one, namely because the minor is false about the natural object, that it is naturally attainable, - it is true in the other way, namely as that to which the power is naturally inclined or ordained [n.90]. And in this way should the authority of Avicenna be understood. But as to what should be set down as the first object naturally attainable, 1 d.3 p.1 q.3 nn.8-12 below is about it. The response is confirmed by Anselm On Free Choice of the Will ch.3, ‘We have, as I think, no ability,’ he says, ‘that is sufficient of itself for act.’ He calls ability what we commonly call power; it is clear from his example about sight. It is not therefore inappropriate for a power to be naturally ordained to an object which it cannot naturally attain by natural causes, after the manner of anything that is directed of itself alone to something and yet cannot on its own attain that something.

93. To the second argument [n.2] I deny the consequence. - To the proof [n.2] the thing is clear from what was said [nn.73-78] in the response given to the second argument for the opinion of the Philosopher, that higher things are ordered to the passive reception of a higher perfection than they themselves can actively produce, and consequently their perfection cannot be produced except by some supernatural agent. It is not so with the perfection of inferior things, whose final perfection can be subject to the action of inferior agents.

94. To the third argument [n.3] I say that the possible intellect is not commensurate with firm possession of every propositional truth, that is, it is not commensurate with being moved by the sort of agents that it cannot get to know from phantasms and the natural light of the agent intellect.

When you argue ‘therefore it is made commensurate by something else’ I concede the point - both as to ‘by something else’ in the sense of ‘by a mover’, because the possible intellect assents to the truth through a mover that reveals supernaturally, and as to ‘by something else’ in the sense of ‘by a form’, because it assents by the assent that is made in the possible intellect, which assent is a sort of inclination in the intellect toward that object, making it commensurate with the object.

When about that ‘something else’ you ask further ‘whether it is natural or supernatural’, I say that it is supernatural, whether you understand the question of the agent or of the form.

When you infer ‘therefore the intellect is not commensurate with it, and is by something else made commensurate with it ’, I say that it is of itself in a state of obediential potency with respect to the agent [cf. 3 d.1 q.2 n.7, q.4 n.2], and thus it is sufficiently commensurate with it for the purpose of being moved by it. Likewise, it is of itself capable of the assent caused by such an agent, even naturally capable; it is not necessary, therefore, that it be by something else made commensurate for receiving the very assent.

A stand, then, is made at the second stage, not the first [n.3], because the revealed truth does not sufficiently incline the intellect to assent to it, and thus the agent is not commensurate and the recipient is not commensurate to it; but a supernatural agent does sufficiently incline the intellect to the truth, by causing in it an assent whereby it is commensurate with this truth, such that there is no need for the intellect to be by something else made commensurate to such an agent or to the form it impresses, as there is need that it be by something else made commensurate in the two aforesaid ways to such an object [n.94].